Apple's education event just ended, and just as Ars Technica said, Apple announced better support for textbooks, as well as a textbook authoring tool. The textbook authoring tool is heavily inspired by Keynote and Pages, and hence, I already know it's going to be top-notch and very pleasant to use. In addition, the company also repositioned iTunes U as a Blackboard competitor. As great as all these new tools are, several large red flags went up in my mind: I remember what it was like being the only student who didn't use Windows. Update: "Any e-textbook author that wants access to the iPad-toting masses must make his or her work an exclusive to iBooks 2."

Let's get this straight : I agree that iBooks, as it stands, is a web page marketed as a book by Apple. However, this strange naming raises some interesting questions about the nature and becoming of books in the digital age.

Is a book about printed pages ? Maybe a linear stream of textual information ? If books could be updated at no cost, would they remain books ? And so on...